September Theme: The Stories We Carry
Big Question: Why do certain stories stay with us?
Week 4: The Stories We Tell Others
What I wrote below is based on the following creative writing prompt included in Saturday’s Writing Prompts About The Stories We Tell Others post.
Prompt: An Honest Interview
Describe an interview where both a celebrity and a journalist use a magic potion that forces them to speak with absolute honesty while trying to maintain a professional yet friendly persona.
Why did I choose it?
I decided to complete this prompt because I’m unsure if anything dramatic or entertaining will come out of it, as this seems to be pretty standard for interviews— the need to remain professional yet friendly, especially if you don’t want to be interviewed or aren’t a fan. But we shall see what happens once I start writing, because I do want to figure out how to make this interesting, or at least somewhat entertaining.
I don’t write about celebrities or journalists all that much either since there are so many stories about those two demographics. But I want to see what I can come up with without falling into typical tropes for each demographic (e.g. new journalist or older journalist trying to land a story before they get axed or the publication they work for goes under, and or the celebrity struggling with the spotlight versus their personal life and flaws and or substance abuse).
I’m also curious if I’ll need to write dual perspectives to get into their minds and whether I’ll need to write inner monologues to express their struggles expressing themselves, or if a third person omniscient perspective will make better sense. Again, we shall see!
Read what I came up with, then let me know if this prompt, or any of the others shared yesterday, brought up any interesting ideas or feelings you want to explore this week so we can chat about it!
My Response: No Good Deed
I know now that I shouldn’t have done what I did. But I was sent to that warehouse to do a good deed. Which was what my intention was all along, I swear it!
Seriously, you can’t listen to what the tabloids or reaction videos about the footage I captured that day say about what happened in that sweltering, god-forsaken place.
It’s all lies. All of it!
What turned into a contentious brawl between two little-known personalities didn’t start out that way. Not even close. Please believe me. Because then I can tell you what really happ—
…
Sure, but I never wanted them to go viral, like they have some kind of disease. I wanted them to fall in love! Or at least like.
…
So, are you still interested in hearing the story?
…
Sure, take a drink.
…
Haha, no I didn’t bring it in.
…
Good?
….
Great. So, there I was, in this warehouse that was part of a movie set, where Hillary was filming for the day, sweating buckets. I mean, there was no ventilation in that place, and it was a closed set so—
…
Yeah, okay, fine. Geez.
Anyway, there I was posing as a videographer for the day because I was assigned her case, and somehow being behind a camera seems to make a person invisible, unless you’re the one shooting the actual film on the movie set. Which meant I had to improvise a little and go in as the videographer tasked with shooting her interview with Carl Bridges, for that one gossip rag. You know the one?
Yeah?
…
Yes. THAT Carl Bridges. One of the best journalists out there, before his column got canceled and his boss apparently started hating him, giving him these B-List movie beats instead.
….
I still have no clue why he started getting more mediocre assignments. But he did, and I now know he is not at all happy about it. Resentful even.
…
Anyhow, my gig was to give Hillary a little confidence boost because even though she’s a movie star, she’s pretty insecure these days. She’s taking those weight loss drugs everyone’s raving about and always pushing and poking at her lower belly and outer thighs after that one jerk of a reporter, not named Bridges, told her that she had “really filled out recently.”
She had just had a baby then, but that didn’t matter. After that interview, she wasn’t the same. Started fumbling her lines and wearing baggy clothes and getting torn apart by onlookers with smartphones everywhere for being a ‘witch’ and ‘weirdly rude’ and entering her ‘chunky aesthetic’, which as you can imagine only made things spiral further downward for her, and made her refuse to do anymore interviews.
Until this one that I was tasked to capture.
After reading her background file, I’m thinking the best way to crush the gig and do my good deed is to make her feel pretty, desired even. Isn’t that what every woman wants?
…
Yeah, obviously I was way off the mark.
Just the same, Carl Bridges is a notoriously straight-laced gentleman, never crossing that professional line with women. Not even once. And from what I can tell, the ladies seem to find him attractive. He was also newly single, just like Hillar—
…
I figured, why not? What better deed is there than doing whatever it takes to make sure two strangers, who are essentially good people, fall in love? Or are at the very least uninhibitedly kind to each other? I mean, I had no reason to believe it would be otherwise.
Besides, if they fell in love, I was thinking that would be counted as two good deeds, not just one. One good deed for each of them.
…
Of course I was in it for myself. Aren’t all good deeds self-serving to some extent, especially in our line of work? Doesn’t make them any less effective.
…
In any case, that’s where my head was at and why I decided to add the truth serum to the coffees the PA brought in and set in front of them before we started rolling.
Hillary and Carl, they’re both decent people, in reputation and looks, so I figured if they cut to the chase only good things would happen between them.
…
Oh, love potion doesn’t exist because love can’t exist without full awareness and active participation of all parties involved.
…
Yeah, I know.
Moving on to the actual interview now.
At first, everything was going really well. Like really, really well.
Carl was warm and asked some engaging questions about the film Hillary was working on. Something about a drug smuggling heist gone wrong. A comedy, I think. He seemed to really admire her work though, even some of her lesser-known projects. And she seemed to feel more and more comfortable answering his questions as time went on. They even laughed a few times about being parents with demanding jobs and odd schedules and growing up on the coast. All relatable and vanilla. Everyone’s yucking it up. All smiles and big, attentive eyes.
So, I’m obviously thinking everything is going well and that I’m a genius. That I’m obviously crushing this good deed. I mean, no one had seen Hillary smile like that, let alone laugh like that, in months! No bedroom eyes or anything like that from either of them, but what I saw signaled good vibes all around. And that I’m about to get noticed by the higher ups.
But then… then I realized the serum must have finally kicked in because as soon as Hillary made that no-holds-barred quip about Carl being demoted to interview the likes of her with a huge, genuine smile on her face, which probably made it worse somehow, you can actually see his entire body clench, just seize up, almost involuntarily.
For the rest of the interview, pre-blow-up, he’s stiff as a board in his leather chair, super rigid and moody, clenching his jaw so hard I think he’s going to crack a tooth!
He’s asking her about how she prepares for roles and what costumes are her favorite to wear and what her favorite on-set snacks are, but through gritted teeth. Meanwhile, she’s starting to fidget, crossing her arms in front of her body then leaning to one side then the other, like she’s growing self-conscious and shielding her body from him, as well as the camera.
Every second becomes more and more painful to watch. More and more intense, but in a ‘this volcano is about to explode and kill us all’ kind of way. One of the most bizarre and truly awkward interviews I’ve ever had to witness.
And the more he clenches, the more she seems to mistake his austerity and growing dryness as rooted in her B-Level status, which in her mind is due to her weight and all those nasty things being said about her ‘glow-down’ online and by that one jerk reporter who is still talking about her in demoralizing ways, though he’s added a wink now to really sell it.
So, she’s already wary of reporters after what happened with that last guy, right, especially male reporters. But Carl won’t stop asking questions about her wardrobe and snack intake and makeup, which are the absolute worst kind of questions to ask someone in her pos—
…
Yeah, I definitely think that’s why it spread as fast as it did. Like a disease, I tell ya! It was making everyone sick to watch, but in a way they couldn’t resist, I guess. But I just wanted them to get lovesick, not… haha… whatever the hell that was.
It was just so disturbing and anxiety-inducing.
…
Definitely!
…
Anyway, we all know what happens when Carl finally gets around to asking Hillary if she wants a diet soda…
Which is why I kept mentioning how god-forsakenly hot it was in the warehouse that day!
He was probably just trying to cool off and didn’t want to appear rude by not offering her a drink too. But it didn’t come across that way in the end. At all.
Everything went completely bananas, off the rails, and got super looney after that.
I still can’t believe she threw the lamp. And that he tore her script up!
…
What did I learn?
Well, no good deed goes unpunished, that’s for sure… but also, I need to be more selective with who I give that truth serum to in the future. Yeesh!
…
My Reflection and an Invitation
This piece didn’t end up turning out how I thought it would in the beginning. Originally, I thought it would have a lot more dialogue between the journalist and the celebrity in it, especially because it was supposed to be about their interview.
But then I started writing and a different type of ‘honest’ interview took shape— the one between the narrator speaking and whomever is interviewing them about the aftermath of the chaos they caused between the journalist and celebrity via an administered truth serum. A narrator of dubious origin and motivation, which I found even more compelling, prompting me to follow their pull.
I might revise this entire thing one day, the longer I sit with it, but for now it will remain as is. Honestly, I’m not even sure I responded to the prompt, yet nevertheless, this is what the prompt inspired.
How about you? What did this prompt or piece of flash fiction surface for you?
Leave a comment or join this month’s Drafters Workshop Chat so we can discuss your writing related to Writing Prompts About The Stories We Tell Others, or anything else you’re currently working on.
Whether you join the chat to share your responses to this week’s prompts, ask questions, workshop an excerpt of something else you’ve written, or simply want to encourage others, we’d love to see you there as we explore the stories we carry and how they impact our lives throughout September.
If you enjoyed this post, please remember to like it and share it! Thank you and I hope to see you in the chat or comments soon!
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Go Deeper with Daily Drafters Exclusives
This month: The Stories We Carry Writing Collection
This collection offers a month of guided writing exercises, mini workshops, and creative writing experiments designed to take you beyond a single prompt and into a deeper creative practice. It gives you the creative spark and space you need to explore memory, identity, inheritance, perspective, voice, and the stories we tell ourselves and others. It will also encourage you to consider how those stories shape the work we create and the creative lives we lead.
Inside this collection, you’ll find 30 original writing prompts (designed as mini writing workshops) across five sections with focused themes, craft-focused exercises, curated reading suggestions, reflective questions, and three optional month-long writing challenges designed to help you develop your ideas, explore your personal material and stories, and build a consistent writing practice.
You can follow the prompts in order, choose the exercises that speak to you, or return to a section whenever you need a new way to explore your writing craft. As a paid subscriber, you will also be able to come back to the collection throughout the month or any other time you feel like exploring The Stories We Carry in the future.